Egyptian Government Pushes Digital ID Cards

The Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the country’s embassy in Finland have met with Estonian officials as part of an effort to issue digital ID cards to Egypt’s 85 million citizens. The country’s new prime minister still must approve the project, but the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology supports the effort as part of a government-modernization move. Estonians have used digital government IDs for more than a decade, but it took 12 years for the cards to reach all that nation’s residents. The EU is working on a plan that would let digital IDs work seamlessly across borders but would not compel member nations that haven’t adopted such programs to do so. Member nations with such programs include Finland, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. Indonesia and India are deploying biometric ID cards. (Ars Technica)(ZDNet)(e-Estonia)